Bonifacio, Balthasar

, the son of a lawyer of the same name, was born at Crema, in the Venetian state about 1584. In his thirtieth year he went to study at Padua, and made such proficiency as to be created doctor of laws at the age of eighteen. About two years after he was appointed law professor in the college of Rovigo, where he first lectured on the institutes of Justinian. He afterwards accompanied the pope’s nuncio Jerome Portia, as secretary, and was himself employed in some affairs of importance. On his return to Venice, he had several preferments, and among others that of archpriest of Rovigo. In Oct. 1619, he was elected Greek and Latin professor at Padua, but declined accepting the office. In 1620, he assisted at Venice, in the establishment of an academy for the education of the young nobility, and gave lectures on the civil law. Pope Urban VIII. bestowed on him the archdeaconry of Trevisa, which he held, with the office of grand vicar of that diocese, under four successive bishops. | He assisted also very essentially in founding a new academy at Padua for the Venetian nobility, in 1636, and was the first director or president of it, and founded a similar establishment at Trevisa. In 1653 he was appointed bishop of Capo d'Istria, which he held until his death in 165i). He was a man of various learning, as appears by his “Historia Trevigiena,” 4to, his “Historia Ludicra,1656, 4to, a collection of singular narratives from authors of every description. He published also some “Latin poems” in 1619, 12mo. “De Romanae Historian Scriptoribus excerpta ex Bodino, Vossio et aliis,Venice, 1627, 4to. 1

1 Moreri. —Niceron, voL XVI. and XX. —Saxii Onomasticon.